Thing is, if France remains firm about its veto threat, that jiggers the whole equation, in the same sort of way that Bush’s determination to go to war regardless does: it buggers the question.
If Bush is going anyway, it undercuts any sincere vote against war: why piss off the big dog when it won’t do any good? Similar effect to the French veto. The African countries can be let off the hook, they don’t have to worry about losing desperately needed US aid, they can vote for war knowing that it won’t have any real effect.
Downside is: if this thinking prevails, Bush will claim that he really did have UN support, its just that France backstabbed him.
Big surprise is apparently Chile: I had pretty much written them off, but they are showing some surprising backbone. As for Mexico, that would be something. But it has to be a very very tough call for Vincente Fox - his people are against the war by vast majority but if GeeDubya wants to squeeze his cojones he just has to reach into his pocket.
However, at the end of the day, whether the resolution passes or not, or a veto is cast, makes no difference for two reasons:
The USA will go to war regardless of any UN SC vote.
The vote will put all the countries on the SC on notice for all the world to see.
For example, if France abstains, or even vetoes, and we find evidence of French-supplied war materiel, opinion will sway that France was continuing with its time-honored tradition of self-interest. France would like nothing more than the level of their involvement be minimized to the point the USA will be able to extract concession from France at later dates and with later issues.
I would think there may be similar issues with Russia. Germany is playing its cards because of its own internal problems with Muslim fanatics within its borders.
In short, every SC member will vote based on its own self-interest. What remains is how will Bush use their votes in extracting support for other issues down the road.
I think it very much matters, Duckster. If the SC votes down the war resolution without a veto, Blair will back out. He’s already looking for weasel room, as in the difference between “disarmament” and “regime change”.
American support for war is emotional, and very vulnerable to symbolism. They will buy it if the vote for war passes but is vetoed by France. GeeDubya will say the world is with us, but France shafted us. But if the SC votes down the resolution, the stark facts of the situation will become apparent.
Our hypocrisy has become blatant, and therefore vulgar. We know the Turkish people are more than 90% against our war, yet we bribe thier government with billions of dollars in the name of spreading democracy. In direct contradiction to the will of thier people.
We supply chump change in aid to Cameroon, Guinea, and Angola. Well, chump change to us, desperately needed help for them. Does anyone here doubt for one second that we’ll jerk it away from them if they defy us? If I were thier leader, I would be duty bound to vote in favor of the US position, the welfare of my people would allow no other choice. To us, “cholera” and “dysentary” are just words we read in the paper. Not to them. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, to stoop to that sort of extortion.
In the words of Mr. Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
Cite?
(Incidentally you call it semantics, I call it international diplomacy.)
I don’t remember the US declaring war on Iraq - wasn’t it a UN action?
Or indeed any other country?
That must be why Turkey turned down billions of dollars in bribes from the US for access into Northern Iraq - they’re trying to get their name in the papers!
So your view is that we have the US, who are just trying to protect Kuwait from an imminent re-invasion, and the Rest of the World just want ‘publicity’ by trying to stop them.
Some of us think that ‘Iraq’s significant oil resources’ are indeed a cause for the war. (So far a US oil company hasn’t sponsored a US tank regiment, but there’s still time…)
And the war is ‘compelling’ because Iraq has shot (and missed) at US planes? Good thing the Chinese didn’t have you in charge when the US bombed their embassy.
Other nations have ‘relevance’ to you when exactly?
Also the UK national mood is clear. Millions of us walked in protest against the war. Opinion polls show a clear majority against the invasion. The Government only survived a vote in Parliament because the opposition voted for war.
So do bear in mind that Blair only supports the US through a personal conviction - he doesn’t represent his country.
Well you said ‘woe unto them’. I just didn’t know how far you would go.
Also, once you have broken off diplomatic relations with France, Russia, Germany etc., what would be your next step? You could give new meaning to the phrase ‘trade war’!
But some of us see a moral issue here. Should one country be entitled to invade another whenever it feels like it?
N.B. I easily turned one of your diatribes onto an Iraqi justification for invading Kuwait. Does that worry you?
Very interesting idea. I think that would mean that, if the U.S. goes ahead and invades Iraq, it might end up being the first recipient of a Security Council resolution condemning, by a 2/3 majority, its actions. Let’s see, a country that invades another nation, one that hasn’t attacked it, and that doesn’t really possess any credible means of threatening it, is defined as… wait for it… an aggressor nation, right? Or perhaps “rogue state?”
Oh, wait, Iraq might, some day, supply weapons to anti-American terrorists, so that makes them a real threat? There’s no evidence that Iraq has already done so, is there? If you think this is a valid justification for attacking Iraq, I suggest that you shouldn’t examine too closely the current sources of terrorist weapons. For the most part, they’re not building their own anti-aircraft missiles, or automatic firearms. Lots of guilty parties out there, including the U.S. (Gee, let’s provide the mujahadeen with lots of weapons to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan! Would you like to guess how many of those weapons have since ended up in the hands of people who would murder us in our beds if they could get to us?)
Eddie, like a few other doctrinaires on this board, you really can’t conceive that anyone could reach a conclusion different from yours for honorable reasons, can you? Sad.
Now, perhaps you have an idea how getting most of our neighbors and trading partners, including most of the world, angry and scared and thinking of retaliation for being retaliated against for think so, is somehow in our national interest, a term you seem to be defining only in economic terms.
Fine then - do you really think that cutting off relations with anyone who has a disagreement with us, restricting trade and travel, or whatever you want to define as “woe to them” (and don’t dismiss your own arguments as “semantics” if you don’t want to be hooted down, btw), is in our interest? You’ve prescribed a situation of endless war and economic regression, and all to satisfy an adolescent-level sense of honor. Yes, the Golden Rule applies to nations as well as people, and I’m sorry you don’t want to explore that.
This is a valid question, but I think that the question is valid even in the absence of the present conflict.
Anyone care to guess how many of the five permanent members of the SC have engaged in military action without the approval of the UN? How about five.
US - Vietnam, Haiti, Kosovo, Grenada, Panama
Every president since Truman has engaged in military action without the approval of the UN. Even Carter.
China - India, Vietnam
Russia - Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan
Britain and France - Egypt, Kosovo, and all over Africa
At the sake of being controversial, no country in its right mind would give up its sovereignty in the name of some world organization that may or may not represent that country’s best interests. Theoretically, what is best for the few is best for the many, but that is not always true. Moral authority suggests that there is one standard, and obviously the morals of various countries varies greatly.
My prediction: The new resolution passes barely in the popular vote and with a lot of abstaining from the permanent members. France and Russia are worried about the world discovering that they have been violated UN imposed sanctions, but once that is assured of happening anyway (as it already is ) the importance of the veto diminishes.
An Interesting article was published yesterday at La Nación (Argentina’s most important newspaper). I am not providing a link because that article is, as the rest of the paper, in Spanish.
It’s author is Mario Vargas Llosa one of the best living ibero-american author (one of this days he is going to win the Nobel Prize on literature). He made an interesting analysis of the current world situation specialy regarding the U.N controversy.
He argues that everyone is being completely idiotic. Specially America and France. On one hand Bush has been planning this war for months, for him going to the U.N. and securing a clear resolution ordering the attack was never important, merely a formality. On the other hand Chirac, as true french, used this opportunity for yet again another “bash U.S.A” campaign that are so popular in France. The problem is that drunk on his own success he went to far. Both America and France have gone to far to back down, and worst, to the eternal shame of both of their diplomatic corp they violated the first rule of diplomacy: “always leave room for negotiation”.
The consequence? The world order as we know it is threatened. We all know this but his argument is that Saddam is not worth the effort, so his position is that eventhough he is anti-war, Bush should have his erotic fantasy come true. The problem is that he doesn’t know how can this happen this late in the game. If chirac don’t use his veto power (on the event of a new resolution) he is not only politicaly but also biologicaly dead. America, on the other hand, can’t retreat because it is fully comitted (and if WWI taught as anything is that an army once mobilazed can only be used).
So everyone should fasten their seatbelts because will have a rough couple of years.
That’s a common misconception, as I understand it.
The UN (assembly) is a association of nations: it’s like a trade group, except its members are sovereign powers. Why it should have a democratic reputation, given that a huge share of its leaders is unelected, is unclear to me.
The UN assembly also gives a platform for smaller nations to make their views known. Read: talk shop, not a democracy.
The Security Council is another matter. That’s a collective of militarily powerful countries who have the wherewithal to mandate international order - by force if they want to. Read: a potential mechanism of power politics, not a democracy.
Admittedly, the UN does have a certain moral authority, by virtue of the cultural breadth (and local power) of its members. Still, to overemphasize this element seems misguided: its members are politicians, after all (albeit ones with constituencies of varying scope). Vote trading and influence peddling should be as natural to them as breathing.
I suspect they will suceed. It will be a squeeker, but they are likely to pull it off. Mexico will knuckle under, they almost have no choice, they simply cannot afford to defy the US. Same holds true, only more so for the African nations. And as I said, I honestly cannot blame them. As Marat said “What good is politics to a man who has no bread?” Chile, I understand, has already fallen in line with our noble, if recently minted, Bulgarian allies. With the US, Spain, and UK, that makes eight. The last hold out is the one who will score the biggest goodies: they get to pick Door #3 after seeing 1 and 2.
And then GeeDubya will trumpet his moral victory, how the democratic nations of the world have responded to his Leadership. His “vision thing”. France may veto, I doubt Russia and China will back thier play, they most likely will let her take the heat, and politley abstain. Gutless sacks of shit.
I think elucidator might be right. The U.S. will get the bare 9 votes, and then France will be forced to either veto or cave in.
This is a win-win for the administration, and for Britain, if the SC votes for it and dumps the problem in France’s lap. If France vetoes a majority vote, it’s France that will look unilateral and bad, and once the war is over, if it ends successfully, France will take a huge diplomatic hit on the world stage. And if evidence is found that France was violating U.N. sanctions and providing Iraq with forbidden materials (as seems likely to me), France is in big, big trouble diplomatically.
The only way the U.S. really loses diplomatically here is if they can’t muster more than the four or five votes they’ve already got. If the majority of the SC votes against the U.S., it will hurt the U.S. politically. That’s really the only scenario that does.
Well…there’s quite a lot of people who can read spanish on this board. So, I see no reason why you shouldn’t give the link. It’s likely that at least some dopers will be interested in reading the whole article (though of course, summing it up english in the thread, as you did, is certainly necessary).
BTW the wording of the resolution is here. (This may require paid registration.) The key provision is
It says that Iraq will have failed its final opportunity unless the Council concludes that there is appropriate cooperation.
Apparently it would take another SC resolution to prevent the conclusion of non-cooperation from taking effect on March 17. In other words, this resolution would authorize war on March 17, unless the SC passed yet another resolution affirming “full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation.” Note that the US or Britain could use their veto power to prevent that resolution from passing. In short, this wording effectively authorizes an attack after March 17, as I read it.
Perhaps. But who’s going to believe us? We have told great big whopping bunker-buster lies. These recent revelations about forged documents being submitted as evidence is just the cherry on top of a turd sundae. We lied about the aluminum tubes, lied about reports that never existed, witheld information from a defector that damaged our case while at the same time touting the veracity of those portions that appealed to us.
Hell, I don’t believe us anymore, and I love America! What possible chance have we with someoe who doesn’t? France will be in big trouble? Well, tell you what, I’d rather be traveling the world on a French passport sooner than an American one.
Isn’t it too late already for the vote to be “won” in the larger sense, no matter the count, given the conditions under which the yes votes are being obtained? Would even a Yes result, especially a squeaker, be seen as the voice of the world that Bush craves and Blair needs? Obviously not, right?
And why assume that France will get all the heat, either, except out of your own pique at them? That’s a meme of the RW commeRussia and China are No votes too, and have veto power as well - are you sure they wouldn’t use it, knowing there’d be little difference in Bush’s retributive instincts between that and a simple No vote?
elucidator, you’re unfortunately probably right about the poorer nations’ votes being coerced by the threat of withdrawal of humanitarian aid by an instinctively isolationist administration. Talk about “winning” a vote if that is what happens.
I think Russia is just playing a game. They will abstain, but want the undecided countries to think that there is no reason to stick their necks out because the resolution will fail anyway. I would imagine that Russia would prefer France to use their veto since this is really France’s baby.
Elucidator, while I understand your earlier post about all of the “negotiating” for votes, I have a few questions:
Is there evidence that the US or UK are trying to “coerce” votes by saying that they will cut humaitarian aid?
France is lobbying as hard for votes as the US is, does that mean that a “win” for France would be equally suspect?
If the smaller countries are seeking additional aid or concessions in return for their votes, does this taint the outcome as well?
Maybe I am cynical, but isn’t diplomacy a euphemism for “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?”
It’s going to be very close. If France look getting one of the African states I reckon the US and the UK will just withdrawal the new resoulotion and claim 1441 gives them the authority to invade.